U.S.-led air strikes kill 27 people in Hasakah: activists

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 27 people, including women and children, have been killed on Wednesday due to the U.S.-led air strikes on ISIS-held areas in the northeastern province of Hasakah, activists said.

The strikes on the villages of al-Hazeem, al-Ammo and Tahmaz south of Hasakah city have killed 17 people from two families as the U.S.-led international coalition extends raids on ISIS-controlled oil wells,activist Malath al-Yousef told Zaman al-Wasl.

Early Wednesday, ten people lost their lives when a U.S. air strike hit their vehicle as they were heading a funeral in the village of Jayer west of Hasakah city.

Meanwhile, clashes have renewed between the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and ISIS near al-Howl town, al-Yousef told Zaman al-Wasl, as SDF seeks to capture new ground taking advantage of the international coalition.

The Kurdish militias eyed on oil-riched town of al-Shaddadi, one of the most strategic ISIS strongholds in Syria.

Al-Shadadi is a logistics hub for the Islamic State group, located on a network of highways and whose capture would isolate Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the hardline group.

Atleast 15 people who were killed when strikes hit a bakery in al-Shadadi on Tuesday

The U.S.-led coalition has been hitting Islamic State targets in areas of Syria and Iraq which the group controls, including in Hasaka and Raqqa provinces.

Washington also backs an alliance of Kurdish YPG fighters and other groups fighting against the jihadists on the ground. The YPG has been the most effective partner against IS in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition, and took swathes from territory from the group last year.

Russia is separately carrying out its own air campaign in Syria, hitting some Islamic State targets, but mostly focused on insurgents fighting Moscow ally Bashar al-Assad in the west of the war-torn country.

Colonel Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman, said on Wednesday that U.S.-led air strikes on Islamic State cash storage sites have cost the militant group hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Reuters.

The United States is trying to cut revenue to Islamic State - believed to be one of the best-funded militant groups in the world - through air strikes targeting its oil production as well as cash storage sites.

As of mid-January, the U.S.-led coalition had struck 10 Islamic State cash storage and distribution sites in Iraq and Syria, Warren said last month.